February 2012

02/29/2012

As part of our recurring feature highlighting lesser-known illustrators, this week we're showcasing Robert O. Reid. Although best known for his illustrations for Collier's during the 1930's and 40's, Reid also did advertising work for companies such as Oldsmobile and Pabst Blue Ribbon. Humorous situations and cartoonishly-drawn beautiful women are hallmarks of his work, as evident in the selection below. Several tearsheets of his art are in the Charles Craver Collection, and you can find more information about Reid and what we have available by looking at the finding aid.

02/22/2012

Although Al Parker had many admirers during his career, perhaps the most famous individual to send him a fan letter was fellow illustrator Norman Rockwell. Read the letter, written February 25th, 1948 (64 years ago this week), below.

02/15/2012

As you may have read recently, the Modern Graphic History Library has acquired the archives of St. Louis artist and sculptor Ernest Trova. During the next few months while we process the collection and prepare it for use, we'll occasionally highlight pieces we come across that we think are particularly interesting, noteworthy, or important.

This week's post features images from a 1947 sketchbook of the artist's. This was an important year for Trova: while working as a window decorator for the department store Famous-Barr, a painting of his appeared in a local exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum and won first prize, a serious feat for a 20-year-old self-taught artist showing his work in public for the first time. Although we have several of Trova's sketchbooks and many of his sketches, this item is unique in its use of watercolors and for being one of the oldest items in the collection. While some of these illustrations may upon first glance look surprisingly different from Trova's later output, the faceless, armless figures can't help but evoke the Falling Man series for which Trova would become famous. (Check out some examples of them on the Ernest Trova website.)

In 1947 Trova also received national attention when his work that won first place in the exhibition -- a mixed media painting entitled Roman Boy -- was featured in LIFE magazine (a scan of Trova standing beside the piece is below). While this sounds like an undeniable honor, the article's tone of bewilderment and hostility are hardly complimentary:

"Ernest Trova is 20 years old, lives with his parents, and earns his living by decorating the windows of a St. Louis clothing store. For recreation he writes poems that few can understand [and] paints pictures that are about as eloquent."

02/09/2012

You may remember our post last November announcing new acquistions to theJack Unruh Collection. Since then, we've digitized many of these illustrations and have recently made them available online through our digital image database, LUNA. (You will need your WUSTL key to log in and browse the images. If you're not affiliated with Washington University and would like to see them, you can contact us for access.) Unruh is well known for his portraits, and his illustrations of actors, musicians, politicians, and other celebrities have appeared in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, and the late Premiere. We've highlighted a few of these finished portraits as well as sketches (all available in LUNA) below.

If you're interested in looking at more of Unruh's work, you can also check out this excellent online exhibit about his artistic process that a practicum student created for us last year.

02/03/2012

Much like today, advertisements about maintaining an attractive appearance were a staple of early twentieth-century women's magazines. This week we bring you a selection of beauty-related ads from our Periodicals Collections.

This ad for Othine which appeared in a July 1929 issue of the Delineator states that the product will free you from the shame of having freckles by removing "these homely spots." Because darker or tanned skin was considered less desirable than fair skin, during the early twentieth century there were countless products promising to lighten skin and fade blemishes, freckles, and liver spots. Unfortunately, many of these products, like other cosmetics of the era, contained harmful amounts of mercury.

Sometimes ads for personal hygiene and beauty products reflected the changing ideas about gender and femininity, as is the case with this ad from a May 1930 issue of the Delineator. "Can a girl Smoke and still be Lovely?" The answer, of course, is yes -- with the help of the right toothpaste.

Scanning our old periodicals, you're likely to find ads for a familiar product with an unfamiliar angle. Listerine was originally created in 1879 as a surgical antiseptic, and over the years has been marketed in many different ways for a variety of purposes. This ad, from an October 1929 issue of McCalls, touts the product's ability to "close pores...tighten sagging muscles" and keep skin youthful.

Even ads for foods and household items sometimes centered on femininity and attractiveness, suggesting that a woman's appearance was the result of not just proper hygiene or a beauty routine, but all aspects of her life. According to this ad from the February 1930 issue of the Delineator, if a look in the mirror reveals sallow skin, dark circles, and dull eyes, chances are it's because you're not eating Post's Bran Flakes: "the pleasant way to build a background for beauty."

Again, we've saved our favorite for last. This ad for Wrigley's Doublemint gum published in the February 1930 issue of the Delineator claims that, thanks to chewing gum, "the enchanting women of ancient Aztec civilization probably had the most exquisite teeth and youthful loveliness of mouth of all the women who ever lived" and therefore "chewing Wrigley's for beautiful lips is but making use of an old Beauty Secret." When Wrigley's began including packages of chewing gum with their baking powder in the early 1890s, the free gift proved to be so successful that the company phased out their primary product and shifted their focus to gum soon after.